The era of economic liberalization, spanning 1978 to 2008, is often regarded as a period in which government was simply dismantled. In fact, government was reconstructed to meet the needs of a ...
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The era of economic liberalization, spanning 1978 to 2008, is often regarded as a period in which government was simply dismantled. In fact, government was reconstructed to meet the needs of a globalized economy. Central banking, fiscal control, tax collection, regulation, port and airport management, infrastructure development—in all of these areas, radical reforms were made to the architecture of government. A common philosophy shaped all of these reforms: the logic of discipline. It was premised on deep skepticism about the ability of democratic processes to make sensible policy choices. It sought to impose constraints on elected officials and citizens, often by shifting power to technocrat-guardians who were shielded from political influence. It placed great faith in the power of legal changes—new laws, treaties, and contracts—to produce significant alterations in the performance of governmental systems. Even before the global economic crisis of 2007-2009, the logic of discipline was under assault. Faced with many failed reform projects, advocates of discipline realized that they had underestimated the complexity of governmental change. Opponents of discipline emphasized the damage to democratic values that followed from the empowerment of new groups of technocrat-guardians. The financial crisis did further damage to the logic of discipline, as governments modified their attitudes about central bank independence and fiscal control, and global financial and trade flows declined. It was the market that now appeared to behave myopically and erratically, and which now insisted that governments should abandon precepts about the role of government that it had once insisted were inviolable. An account of neoliberal governmental restructuring across the world, The Logic of Discipline offers an analysis of how this undemocratic model is unravelling in the face of a monumental and ongoing failure of the market.Less

The Logic of Discipline : Global Capitalism and the Architecture of Government

Alasdair Roberts

Published in print: 2010-03-17

The era of economic liberalization, spanning 1978 to 2008, is often regarded as a period in which government was simply dismantled. In fact, government was reconstructed to meet the needs of a globalized economy. Central banking, fiscal control, tax collection, regulation, port and airport management, infrastructure development—in all of these areas, radical reforms were made to the architecture of government. A common philosophy shaped all of these reforms: the logic of discipline. It was premised on deep skepticism about the ability of democratic processes to make sensible policy choices. It sought to impose constraints on elected officials and citizens, often by shifting power to technocrat-guardians who were shielded from political influence. It placed great faith in the power of legal changes—new laws, treaties, and contracts—to produce significant alterations in the performance of governmental systems. Even before the global economic crisis of 2007-2009, the logic of discipline was under assault. Faced with many failed reform projects, advocates of discipline realized that they had underestimated the complexity of governmental change. Opponents of discipline emphasized the damage to democratic values that followed from the empowerment of new groups of technocrat-guardians. The financial crisis did further damage to the logic of discipline, as governments modified their attitudes about central bank independence and fiscal control, and global financial and trade flows declined. It was the market that now appeared to behave myopically and erratically, and which now insisted that governments should abandon precepts about the role of government that it had once insisted were inviolable. An account of neoliberal governmental restructuring across the world, The Logic of Discipline offers an analysis of how this undemocratic model is unravelling in the face of a monumental and ongoing failure of the market.

This book takes as its starting point Max Weber's contention that contemporary Western culture is marked by a ‘disenchantment of the world’ — the loss of spiritual value in the wake of religion's ...
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This book takes as its starting point Max Weber's contention that contemporary Western culture is marked by a ‘disenchantment of the world’ — the loss of spiritual value in the wake of religion's decline and the triumph of the physical and biological sciences. Relating themes in Hegel, Nietzsche, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, and Gadamer to topics in contemporary philosophy of the arts, it explores the idea that Art, now freed from its previous service to religion, has the potential to re-enchant the world. The book develops an argument that draws on the strengths of both ‘analytical’ and ‘continental’ traditions of philosophical reflection. The opening chapter examines ways in which human lives can be made meaningful, and the second chapter critically assesses debates about secularization and secularism. Subsequent chapters are devoted to painting, literature, music, architecture, and festivals. The book concludes that only religion properly so called can ‘enchant the world’, and that modern art's ambition to do so fails.Less

The Re-enchantment of the World : Art versus Religion

Gordon Graham

Published in print: 2007-10-01

This book takes as its starting point Max Weber's contention that contemporary Western culture is marked by a ‘disenchantment of the world’ — the loss of spiritual value in the wake of religion's decline and the triumph of the physical and biological sciences. Relating themes in Hegel, Nietzsche, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, and Gadamer to topics in contemporary philosophy of the arts, it explores the idea that Art, now freed from its previous service to religion, has the potential to re-enchant the world. The book develops an argument that draws on the strengths of both ‘analytical’ and ‘continental’ traditions of philosophical reflection. The opening chapter examines ways in which human lives can be made meaningful, and the second chapter critically assesses debates about secularization and secularism. Subsequent chapters are devoted to painting, literature, music, architecture, and festivals. The book concludes that only religion properly so called can ‘enchant the world’, and that modern art's ambition to do so fails.

This book offers an analytical perspective on the policy debate on the design and reform of the international financial architecture. It stresses the role played by coordination problems in the ...
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This book offers an analytical perspective on the policy debate on the design and reform of the international financial architecture. It stresses the role played by coordination problems in the origin and management of crises by relating the insights of the new literature on global games to earlier work on currency crises, bank runs, and sovereign debt default. It draws on recent research and policy work to examine the debate on the design of sovereign bankruptcy procedures, the role of the IMF in influencing the actions of creditors and debtors, and the role of private sector involvement in the management of financial crises.Less

Michael ChuiPrasanna Gai

Published in print: 2005-01-27

This book offers an analytical perspective on the policy debate on the design and reform of the international financial architecture. It stresses the role played by coordination problems in the origin and management of crises by relating the insights of the new literature on global games to earlier work on currency crises, bank runs, and sovereign debt default. It draws on recent research and policy work to examine the debate on the design of sovereign bankruptcy procedures, the role of the IMF in influencing the actions of creditors and debtors, and the role of private sector involvement in the management of financial crises.

The book examines the issue of whether there is any general theory in the biological and social sciences that has similar explanatory power to the general theories of physics. Specifically selection ...
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The book examines the issue of whether there is any general theory in the biological and social sciences that has similar explanatory power to the general theories of physics. Specifically selection theory and niche construction are deemed to have wide explanatory scope within the transformation of species, certain forms of learning and knowledge gain, the operation of the vertebrate immune system, and the way science itself operates as a process. Cultural change in general is also assessed as a possible consequence of selection processes. It is concluded that in addition to the selection and construction processes themselves, the complexity of the multiple forms of co-evolving selection processes operating at different levels of selection must be considered as an essential part of any general theory.Less

Evolutionary Worlds without End

Henry Plotkin

Published in print: 2010-04-21

The book examines the issue of whether there is any general theory in the biological and social sciences that has similar explanatory power to the general theories of physics. Specifically selection theory and niche construction are deemed to have wide explanatory scope within the transformation of species, certain forms of learning and knowledge gain, the operation of the vertebrate immune system, and the way science itself operates as a process. Cultural change in general is also assessed as a possible consequence of selection processes. It is concluded that in addition to the selection and construction processes themselves, the complexity of the multiple forms of co-evolving selection processes operating at different levels of selection must be considered as an essential part of any general theory.

This book has focused on the human and social aspects of castle-building in England, France, and Ireland during the medieval period, to reconcile the civilized with the violent aspects of medieval ...
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This book has focused on the human and social aspects of castle-building in England, France, and Ireland during the medieval period, to reconcile the civilized with the violent aspects of medieval society, as they are perceived today. Writing about the glories of late-medieval architecture, Wim Swaan saw the problem as summed up by Johan Huizinga's remark that medieval life ‘bore the mixed smell of blood and roses’. Perhaps the main contribution to knowledge to be made by studying castles and fortresses in proper breadth is to shed some light on the aspirations and adversities of noblemen and ladies, ecclesiastics, townspeople, and of the great rural majority, and on their civilized achievements, institutional as well as architectural, in the western European middle ages.Less

Epilogue

CHARLES L. H. COULSON

Published in print: 2003-02-20

This book has focused on the human and social aspects of castle-building in England, France, and Ireland during the medieval period, to reconcile the civilized with the violent aspects of medieval society, as they are perceived today. Writing about the glories of late-medieval architecture, Wim Swaan saw the problem as summed up by Johan Huizinga's remark that medieval life ‘bore the mixed smell of blood and roses’. Perhaps the main contribution to knowledge to be made by studying castles and fortresses in proper breadth is to shed some light on the aspirations and adversities of noblemen and ladies, ecclesiastics, townspeople, and of the great rural majority, and on their civilized achievements, institutional as well as architectural, in the western European middle ages.

Masahiko Aoki

Business and Management, Corporate Governance and Accountability, Strategy

The 2008 financial crisis calls for a re-examination of the basic premise of the orthodox shareholder-oriented model of the corporate firm and its governance. This book tries to meet this challenge. ...
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The 2008 financial crisis calls for a re-examination of the basic premise of the orthodox shareholder-oriented model of the corporate firm and its governance. This book tries to meet this challenge. It posits that the primary raison d'être of business corporations is the organization of associative cognitive and physical actions to create corporate values broader than shareholders' values. It identifies five generic modes of organizational architecture distinguished by discrete combinations of human cognitive assets among management and workers, as well as their relationships to use-control rights of physical assets that are provided by the investors. For each of those architectural modes, a particular governance structure is associated as an essentially self-enforcing agreement among the three types of asset-holders. The selection of a corporate form from the possible varieties is evolutionarily conditioned and institutionally linked to stable outcomes of social and political games in which corporations are embedded and play. The book looks at the nature of the evolving diversity of the global corporate landscape and the rising importance of CSR, which contribute to the accumulation of corporate social capital. This evolving state appears to require the redefinition of the role of financial markets as informational, and governance infrastructures that are complimentary to diverse corporate organizations, rather than as dominant principals of corporations.Less

Masahiko Aoki

Published in print: 2010-03-18

The 2008 financial crisis calls for a re-examination of the basic premise of the orthodox shareholder-oriented model of the corporate firm and its governance. This book tries to meet this challenge. It posits that the primary raison d'être of business corporations is the organization of associative cognitive and physical actions to create corporate values broader than shareholders' values. It identifies five generic modes of organizational architecture distinguished by discrete combinations of human cognitive assets among management and workers, as well as their relationships to use-control rights of physical assets that are provided by the investors. For each of those architectural modes, a particular governance structure is associated as an essentially self-enforcing agreement among the three types of asset-holders. The selection of a corporate form from the possible varieties is evolutionarily conditioned and institutionally linked to stable outcomes of social and political games in which corporations are embedded and play. The book looks at the nature of the evolving diversity of the global corporate landscape and the rising importance of CSR, which contribute to the accumulation of corporate social capital. This evolving state appears to require the redefinition of the role of financial markets as informational, and governance infrastructures that are complimentary to diverse corporate organizations, rather than as dominant principals of corporations.

Business and Management, Corporate Governance and Accountability, Strategy

This chapter is concerned with the organizational architecture of business corporations as a system in which cognitions are systematically distributed among the management and the workers, while the ...
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This chapter is concerned with the organizational architecture of business corporations as a system in which cognitions are systematically distributed among the management and the workers, while the investors supply cognitive tools. Specific features of the relationships among them give rise to five generic modes of organizational architecture. It is shown that, for each mode of organizational architecture, there is a particular mode of governance that fits. It is characterized as a self-governing agreement among the three parties that satisfies the conditions of organizational sustainability, fairness, and informational economy, which transform business corporations into teams.Less

Varied Frames of Corporate Cognition and Self‐Governance

Masahiko Aoki

Published in print: 2010-03-18

This chapter is concerned with the organizational architecture of business corporations as a system in which cognitions are systematically distributed among the management and the workers, while the investors supply cognitive tools. Specific features of the relationships among them give rise to five generic modes of organizational architecture. It is shown that, for each mode of organizational architecture, there is a particular mode of governance that fits. It is characterized as a self-governing agreement among the three parties that satisfies the conditions of organizational sustainability, fairness, and informational economy, which transform business corporations into teams.

This chapter comments on the international community's crisis prevention and crisis resolution efforts. It suggests that though a variety of initiatives have been successful, two gaps remain. One is ...
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This chapter comments on the international community's crisis prevention and crisis resolution efforts. It suggests that though a variety of initiatives have been successful, two gaps remain. One is addressing the problems of the poorest countries because several elements of the so-called new international financial architecture have created further obstacles to their road to economic development. The other gap involves creating alternatives to bailouts for resolving crises in order to ease the pressure on the International Monetary Fund to extend to financial assistance.Less

Final Thoughts

Barry Eichengreen

Published in print: 2002-08-08

This chapter comments on the international community's crisis prevention and crisis resolution efforts. It suggests that though a variety of initiatives have been successful, two gaps remain. One is addressing the problems of the poorest countries because several elements of the so-called new international financial architecture have created further obstacles to their road to economic development. The other gap involves creating alternatives to bailouts for resolving crises in order to ease the pressure on the International Monetary Fund to extend to financial assistance.

From Chennai (Madras), India to London and Washington D.C., contemporary urban middle-class Hindus invest earnings, often derived from the global economy, into the construction or renovation of ...
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From Chennai (Madras), India to London and Washington D.C., contemporary urban middle-class Hindus invest earnings, often derived from the global economy, into the construction or renovation of temples. South Indians often lead such efforts to re-establish authentic temples that nonetheless become sites for innovative communities, new visions of the Gods, and distinctive middle-class religious sensibilities. Although a part of the much-discussed resurgence of Hinduism, Gods and their ritual worship — not nationalistic ideology — center these enterprises. This book aims to go beyond the more common analytical starting points of identity, multiculturalism, transnationalism, or globalism to understand contemporary Hinduism. In both conversation and contention with current theory, the book highlights the Gods, their shrines, and the middle-class people who re-establish them. Using surveys of modern temples in Chennai, London, and Washington D.C. patronized by South Indians, it focuses on the ubiquity of certain Gods and Goddesses — but not all — their portrayal, the architecture of their new “homes”, and their place in the modern urban commercial and social landscapes. Arguing that this migration of Gods in tandem with people is not new, the book traces current temple architecture to Indian merchants who constructed new temples within a decade of the founding of Madras by the East India Trading Company in the initial era of the current world economic system. In the process, it questions the interrelationships between ritual worship/religious edifices, the rise of the modern world economy, and the ascendancy of the great middle class in this new era of globalization.Less

Diaspora of the Gods : Modern Hindu Temples in an Urban Middle-Class World

Joanne Punzo Waghorne

Published in print: 2004-09-23

From Chennai (Madras), India to London and Washington D.C., contemporary urban middle-class Hindus invest earnings, often derived from the global economy, into the construction or renovation of temples. South Indians often lead such efforts to re-establish authentic temples that nonetheless become sites for innovative communities, new visions of the Gods, and distinctive middle-class religious sensibilities. Although a part of the much-discussed resurgence of Hinduism, Gods and their ritual worship — not nationalistic ideology — center these enterprises. This book aims to go beyond the more common analytical starting points of identity, multiculturalism, transnationalism, or globalism to understand contemporary Hinduism. In both conversation and contention with current theory, the book highlights the Gods, their shrines, and the middle-class people who re-establish them. Using surveys of modern temples in Chennai, London, and Washington D.C. patronized by South Indians, it focuses on the ubiquity of certain Gods and Goddesses — but not all — their portrayal, the architecture of their new “homes”, and their place in the modern urban commercial and social landscapes. Arguing that this migration of Gods in tandem with people is not new, the book traces current temple architecture to Indian merchants who constructed new temples within a decade of the founding of Madras by the East India Trading Company in the initial era of the current world economic system. In the process, it questions the interrelationships between ritual worship/religious edifices, the rise of the modern world economy, and the ascendancy of the great middle class in this new era of globalization.